considering growing some triticale next year and looking for some info. What rate do you seed?Hows do you fertilze it? does it need a seed treatment? hows does it compete with weeds? What are the days to maturity? Can you straight cut or does it need to be swathed (does it sprout easy if conditions go bad?)? What are average yeilds and what can person expect $per bushel?

Well, I am not claiming to be an expert, but we have grown triticale for the past 6 or 7 years, so I will be happy to share with you what I know.

Triticale, (which is a cross between durum and rye) does not stool or tiller out very well at all, and consequently the seeding rate needs to be bumped up to get around that. Using durum as a comparison, on irrigation we seed typically 120-150lb/acre. With triticale, we seed at 150-180 lb/acre. Unreal as it sounds, there is a positive yield response at that seeding rate. If you seed less, you will quickly be disappointed at harvest and blame the crop for not yielding well. Treat the crop like you are growing durum when it comes to fertility. It will perorm in much the same way. It is a scrounger of nutrients moreso than wheat, so beware that if levels are moderate to low, you will for sure have low levels of fertility next year. If wireworms are an issue, treat with something like Cruiser Maxx, but regular seed treatment otherwise will be fine. Competing with weeds it is like any other cereal. It will compete against them, but you will lose yield as a result. For choosing chemical, you won't find many that have triticale on the label. As long as you use a herbicide that is listed OK for durum, you should be fine. Days to maturity are about +5 compared to HRSW in your area, so it is a longer season crop. If your crop is clean, you can certainly straight cut it. Our fields usually have second growth weeds, so we have to swath as we can't do pre-harvest glyphosate; that will kill the germination on the seed. I would suggest that the sprouting tolerance is much better than durum, probably equal to or slightly better than HRSW. Yields for us range anywhere from 85-125 bu acre. As far as a selling price, it obviously depends on the year. From what I am hearing this year, some of my customers are selling theirs into the human consumption market for $4.55/ bu at the bin, and some are only getting $3.25 / bu as they have some barley in it. I'm not sure what you can expect for your farm, as you have no information on your profile as to where you are so I can't help you there.
One other thing is that triticale is susceptible to ergot, which you can't do much about other than help it by mowing any brome grass around the field perimeter. Some years are bad, some years you don't see any, but it indeed is susceptible. Hope that helps you out.

we no-tilled a some and drilled some that was disked ground and the disked ground was way better than what we no tilled and the notilled was fertlized also planted in about the same week and close together. the disked stuff was about foot and a half high and very green, notilled stuff was brown and not very tall like a couple inches

You are welcome, Chazlew. I don't mind questions, ask away. With respect to your Q about baling behind a CIH combine, I would have to say it is possible, but the straw would need to be a bit tougher, which those combines do NOT like. This year, we combined our Bunker which we started out by dropping the straw. We have a 2188 with a straw chopper. we put the belt on the slow speed, and took off the stationary knife. After doing the headlands, we put the chopper back on and blew the straw back on the land. The reason was that it was so dry (mid-September, no rain at this point during harvest) that it was pulverizing the straw to nothing. The balers would have had a heck of a time picking any of it up. I think if you are able to grow wheat up where you are, you should have no problem growing spring trit. Fall trit for sure.

Hey there Don,
Yes, you are right- trit can have a fairly large seed, and that is another reason to up the seeding rate. Truth is though, most think that even if the seed is larger, the tillering effect should compensate for that. In reality, trit is a very poor plant for tillering. Most just assume that it will perform like any other cereal. An excellent crop to put in as a cover for alfalfa, etc. Lots of room in between plants for the sunshine to get to. Interestingly enough, we are seeing feedlots switching over to trit for silage, as it holds up against disease that would decimate a barley crop. Their only negative comment so far is that "the stuff is like chopping coat hangers"... they need to touch up their knives way more often than barley apparently.

We stopped growing it down here, as we have issues with bare ground over winter and winter kill as a result. The key to that is to seed it shallow in the fall. They claim if you see the odd seed on top the ground, then you are at the right depth. Fall triticale will grow well anywhere winter wheat will. The seeding rate can be lower also as it has a smaller kernel size compared to spring.

Hey seedman, what grades are there for trit? What the difference in say #human grade and a feed? Where are your guys selling to get into the human market? Also do you know how cows do on it compared to barley? Thanks